The Dozenal Society of America

My Love Affair with Dozens

by F. Emerson Andrews*
One blizzardy afternoon in January, 1934, I sat at my home writing decimal counting, including John W. Nystrom’s proposal for duodenal
desk in that most productive of all mental states, having nothing pressing arithmetic (the name was not happy), and Grover Cleveland Perry’s
to do. Nearly all important thinking comes by that road. The driven mind pamphlet, The American System of Mathematics (1928). Some school
is capable of tremendous production, but I question its quality. Galileo arithmetics gave exercises, usually along with other possible number
discovered the principle of the pendulum not during busy hours in his bases. But in the ‘Thirties, few people had ever heard of the idea, much
observatory but while idling in a cathedral, watch- less tried it out.
ing the chandeliers swinging. If the fable is true, •• •
no laboratory but an hour of dreaming beneath an In two weeks I had finished an article explain-
apple tree brought Sir Isaac Newton to the mental ing counting by dozens, and hopefully sent it off to
spryness which leaped to the laws of gravitation. Scientific American, which seemed the logical market.
The trouble with “efficient” thinking is that, in In an effort to be helpful its extremely able assis-
order to get ahead rapidly, it accepts the habitual tant editor, Albert G. Ingalls, sent a rejection which
without question, hastily building upon it some- seared my writer’s soul:
thing which may be false and is certain to be second-
Unquestionably the duodecimal system
ary. The world being flat, one cannot sail around it. would be far superior to our decimal system
Eight and 4 being 12, arithmetic must remain just … Plainly you have immersed yourself in
as it is. Important discoveries come only when one this study for a long time [two weeks!] and
has (or takes) the leisure to examine with a fresh lost your ability to see it as a reader would
and curious mind the habitual thing. see it de novo. Few would read your article
That wintry afternoon, I remembered hearing through, because it would be labor, giving
long ago, perhaps from a teacher in high school, most readers a severe headache.... It would
that one could count by twelves easier than by tens. take a real dabster of a writer to put it over.
This questioned one of the few remaining things
Clearly, I had utterly failed as the writer which I
in this world of change that nearly everyone takes
hoped I was, and managed only to pass myself off as
for granted. I tried out this half- remembered idea.
a mathematician, which I knew I was not. I ‘phoned
Soon I found that all I needed was to invent two F. Emerson Andrews at the Dozenal Society
of America’s meeting in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Mr. Ingalls, and though he assured me that even a
new numerals, one for the old quantity ten (I used
Dsa File Photo, 15; (17.) April 117b; (1967.). good article would only irritate his chief, who op-
the Roman X and called it dek) and another for
posed duodecimals, he agreed to go over with me
eleven (I used E and called it el). All that afternoon
what he regarded as the article’s deficiencies. We
papers covered with scribbled figures multiplied on my desk as unac-
did this, and I rewrote it three times; at last, reasonably content, I sent it
countably as tropical fish.
off to another magazine, christened “An Excursion in Numbers.”
Mrs. Andrews, still an editor at Henry Holt and Company, came
Four additional magazines would have none of it. Likely magazines
home at dusk to find a writer’s desk covered with no writing, just a mad
with scientific readership were exhausted, but there was my boast to Mrs.
array of figures, some of them not even honest Arabic numerals.
Andrews. At this point I sent it to one of the most unlikely magazines,
“Well,” she said cheerfully, “what a way to waste your time!”
but one in which I had been previously published, Atlantic Monthly.
I had rather intended to waste some time, but now was excited by
Back it came, but this time with a letter from assistant editor Edward
an idea that seemed to have merit. In pretended dudgeon, I announced
C. Aswell, reporting that be thought it one of the most interesting ar-
that these figures represented an important discovery—not, perhaps,
ticles of the year; but the Atlantic never had published mathematics and
a completely new discovery, but one that had never been adequately
probably never would. Certainly he could not accept such a manuscript
introduced to a possibly waiting world. I, a writer, would make this dis-
in the absence of the editor, Ellery Sedgwick, in Japan. But if I wished to
covery known.
send it back after Mr. Sedgwick returned, he personally would present
As a result of this rash boast, I explored the meager literature of
it to him.
counting by twelves—duodecimals. Fragments of duodecimals (in the
I became a reader of ship news reports. Mr. Sedgwick and my man-
sexagesimal system and elsewhere) are found among the Babylonians.
uscript returned to Boston Unquestionably the duodecimal system
A book by Simon Stevin seems to have mentioned it as early as 1585.
would be far superior to our decimal system practically simultaneously.
In England, prominent proponents included Sir Isaac Pitman, who was
Soon came another letter. The Atlantic would publish, provided I would
trying to induce his shorthand students to use duodecimal counting in
permit insertion of an italic paragraph warning off non- mathematical
1855. Thomas Leech’s Dozens versus Tens, appearing in 1866, was the
readers at the point where the article began to be less philosophy and
earliest substantial book on the subject in the English language. Her-
more arithmetic. The italics went in, and the October 1934 Atlantic car-
bert Spencer advocated the system in an article in Appleton’s Popular
ried the “Excursion.” It was an excursion in a sense I had not anticipated.
Science Monthly in June, 1896, and is said to have included in his will
Before my author’s copies of the magazine arrived, letters began piling
funds to promote the duodecimal system and oppose the metric if ever
in. They were from engineers, sea captains, missionaries, sugar plant-
the British Parliament attempts to introduce the latter. He would have
ers, Wall Street bankers, teachers of mathematics, lunatics. Meanwhile
been deeply distressed by the current movement to decimalize British
the Atlantic was getting a similar flood; wrote the Editor, “We hoped, at
currency. In America, a few efforts had been made looking toward duo-
best, for a limited group of appreciative readers, but found instead that
My Love Affair with Numbers · F. Emerson Andrews The Dozenal Society of America Page 1
X = Infinity.” From a magazine which never published abroad. In England came J. Halcro Johnston’s version
mathematics, it suddenly became one urging me to sub- of how counting by dozens should be done, The Reverse
mit more as promptly as possible. 1 Notation (1937). In France, Jean Essig published Douze,
Hendrik Willem van Loon wrote that the idea was in- notre dix futur (1955).
triguing and undoubtedly right, but he was “too old and •••
too hopelessly set in my respect for the sacred number While most of the extensive correspondence was a
ten to adopt the duodecimal system.” A Wall Street se- single interchange of letters, a hard-core group gradu-
curities analyst invited me to lunch, sure that a person ally formed which wrote regularly for a period of years.
willing to examine figures unconventionally would be The top keys on my typewriter were nearly worn out by
able to supply him with a magic formula for outguessing letters that began “Dear Sir” but continued with sub-
the Street’s Depression gyrations. I did analyze extensive stantially nothing but figures. This group usually made
tables he supplied, only to find what I had guessed; over carbons of letters, sending to the whole small circle,
substantial periods, reversals in market direction and gradually began calling itself, humorously, the
follow precisely the same laws of chance as coin New Numbers was published three times: Duodecimal Society of America.
tossings: no matter how many days the market has Harcourt, Brace & Company, NY, 1935 One member of this group was F. Howard See-
run in one direction, the chance of a reversal the Farber & Farber, Ltd., London, 1936 ly of California, who was preparing an arithmetic
next day is still 50-50. Essential Books, NY, 1944 for duodecimals. (It was not completed at the time
A gentleman from Portland wrote, perhaps not of his death, but portions of it have been used in
too seriously, that what I was proposing was really a new religion which a later Society pamphlet.) Another was Charles Q. DeFrance of Ne-
should be called “Andrewism. With your permission I will be your proph- braska, who thought nothing of dealing in reciprocals of primes run-
et. The possibilities stagger the imagination.” A Californian, writing in ning to 180 places. But the most important member of this early group
red because “the black portion of the ribbon is used up and I can’t buy was the late George S. Terry, formerly a British engineer but then living
another,” proposed that this new number system be used to reinterpret in Massachusetts. He had written me only a few days after the original
H. Davidson’s work on the astronomical uses and purposes of the Great “Excursion” was published, expressing lively and informed interest and
Pyramid, and be applied to a new brand of numerology. asking whether logarithmic tables were available in the
Not all the correspondence was favorable. The most new base. I referred him to the Leech logs, for certain
violent objection came from a lady who found my pro- primes, pointed out their inaccuracies, and expressed
posal blasphemous, for did I not know that the Lord had my belief that “no really serviceable table of twelve-
ordained counting by tens with the Ten Command- base logarithms is in existence. If your interest is keen
ments in the Old Testament? Realizing that mathemati- enough to support the considerable labor involved, may
cal arguments were useless in this case, I wrote back ac- I suggest that you might be making a very real contribu-
knowledging the presence of the Ten Commandments tion to the future by developing such a table?”
in the Old Testament, but stoutly affirming that in the Mr. Terry rose to the challenge. He had the Monroe
New Testament there were the Twelve Apostles. Calculating Machine Company build him a machine
In the careful preparation of the “Excursion,” I had with two extra cogs on its wheels—all a machine needs
accumulated far more material than could there be to be a perfect duodecimalian—and went to work. His
used—enough, indeed, for a small book. So I wrote the monumental Duodecimal Arithmetic was published by
book, titled it New Numbers, and took it to Macmillan George Terry in 1180; (1968.) Longmans, Green and Company in 1938, making avail-
where I still had many friends. It came back promptly. able for the first time in history adequate tables of loga-
Indeed, six publishers were unanimously uninterested. Then in early rithms to the twelve base, trigonometric functions in terms of the duo-
March came a letter from Samuel Sloan, of Harcourt, Brace and Com- decimal circle, and other needed apparatus.
pany, acknowledging the uniqueness of the subject and inviting a visit. I In the year his book was published Mr. Terry, who was of course one of
went down, expecting at the best a reduced royalty contract, but armed our carbon-copy correspondents, added to his letter of 21 September 1939
with a pile of the mounting correspondence. He looked this significant paragraph:
through a few of the letters and immediately offered a One other point. In recent circular letters be-
publishing contract. Says the Diary: tween the four of us, “The Duodecimal Society of
It is a strange irony that my first book is to be a America” has been spoken of, with you as Presi-
work on mathematics—a subject in which I had dent and me as Treasurer. This seems to me very
less than no interest up to last spring. I worked sound and capable of being put to a lot of use—
nearly twenty years at novels, and they’ve all especially as I am willing to finance it if necessary.
come back. In a few months I attack a subject But what is the procedure? Who are you going to
essentially foreign, and have a book contract in elect as original members? It should publish a bul-
my pocket. Well, it is an honest job, outgrowth letin. You know all about that business. Should it
of a real enthusiasm; and I think it is a contribu- be “The Duodecimal Society (of America)”?
tion which may prove really worth while some Nothing happened immediately, for I was in no po-
future day. sition to devote extensive time to what was a marginal
The day the book was published, 19 September 1935, Ralph Beard at the dsa meeting interest. But in late 1941 Harcourt forwarded to me a
in Council Bluffs in 117b; (1967.)
Faber and Faber of London cabled an offer for a special letter from Ralph H. Beard, who had just read a copy
British edition, which was issued the next year. It re- of New Numbers. Mr. Beard, an executive of the New
ceived excellent reviews here and abroad, and when the Harcourt edi- York Telephone Company, recognizing our “mutual interest in duo-
tion went out of print, was republished by Essential Books in a revised decimals,” raised “certain questions”:
edition in 1944. Meanwhile it was stimulating other books, here and
Page 2 The Dozenal Society of America F. Emerson Andrews · My Love Affair with Numbers
 As a result of the current war, there will probably be estab- Music and Duodecimals
lished an international government of some type or other. Every now and then some new application of duodecimals turns up.
This may reasonably involve the establishment of an inter- An example is the proposal of a Society member, Mr. Velizar Godjevatz,
national coinage, new standards of weights and measures, for a duodecimal musical notation. He explains this notation, at length
and an integrated telephone service. All of these stress the and with cogency, in his privately printed book. 4 We may briefly note
importance of making rapid progress in the education of the that in simple piano music, for example, the curiously-named “octave”
public in the advantages of duodecimals. has twelve, not eight, tones, produced by seven white and five black
Hence, my questions. Is there an organization for this pur- keys. A confusing set of signs—sharps, flats, naturals, clefs—indicate
pose? Can you give me the address of its correspondent? Is which of those twelve keys is actually to be struck. As a first step in a
it national or international? sensible notation Mr. Godjevatz proposes a stave in which each note
has its own line or space, easily identified:
If no organization exists, I would like to help, unprofession-
ally, in starting one… c d e f g a b c
Now the infant Society had found its organizer. Things began to
move, even under the tensions of World War II. On 5 April 1944 the first
official meeting of The Duodecimal Society of America was held in
my office. Action was started to obtain a nonprofit charter, which states a b c d e f g h i j k l a
that the purpose of the Society is “to conduct research and education of 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3a 3b 40
the public in mathematical science, with particular relation to the use of The Notation Godjevatz. 5
Base Twelve in numeration, mathematics, weights and measures, and I am not enough of a musician to evaluate Mr. Godjevatz’s proposal.
other branches of pure and applied science.” Mr. Terry, who became But the society received from George Bernard Shaw, whose early writ-
chairman of the board, gave an initial endowment 3 of $5,000, supple- ings were largely musical criticism, a letter warmly commending the
mented by other gifts through the years. I was elected president, over Godjevatz notation:
protest; in this field my only merit, I said at our first annual meeting, is Ayot Saint Lawrence, Welwyn Herts
“bringing a valid and important idea to the attention of abler minds.” F. 21st October 1949
Howard Seely, not able to come East because of wartime travel restric- Dear Sirs:
tions, was made vice-president and membership chairman. Ralph H.
I am much obliged to you for sending me Mr. Godjevatz’s
Beard became secretary, treasurer, and editor of The Duodecimal Bul-
book entitled The New Musical Notation. I have read it
letin. His services as mathematician, expert in weights and measures, in-
through and followed its argument attentively. I know most
defatigable secretary, Bulletin editor, sometime president, and continu-
of the new notations from that of Rousseau to the latest, as
ing board member, all without compensation, have been beyond praise
their inventors sent them to me because I was a prominent
these more than twenty years.
professional critic of music 60 years ago. I am greatly taken
•••
by Mr. G’s plan. It is enormously more readable, writable,
Even before the Society was officially organized, we had an opportu-
logical, graphic, and labor saving than any I can remember.
nity for wartime service that happens to demonstrate one of the practi-
Its adoption would save a world of trouble.
cal uses of the duodecimal system, even at present when we have the
ten-system only too literally “on our hands.” I received in late 1943 this Wagner in his last days was still complaining that he could
plea for aid from the Army Transport Service: get nobody to transpose his clarinet parts for him. Reading
music is said to be like riding: unless it is learnt in childhood
As spokesman for a group of clerks employed by the Army
it is never learnt at all. Mr. G’s plan would teach people to
Transport Service, engaged in measuring cargo loaded
count duodecimally with two new digits: eight nine deck ell
aboard ships sailing to our armed forces and allies, we are
ten; and this by itself would recommend it, as duodecimal
greatly interested in your articles If you can straighten us out
arithmetic is a coming reform. I am no longer a reviewer;
with a few demonstrations, it would add greatly to the speed
but if my valuation of the plan will help to call attention to
and efficiency of our work.2
it, you may quote this letter as much as you please.
These clerks then described a typical problem, getting the cubic con-
(Signed) G. Bernard Shaw
tent of a package measuring 2’ 6” × 3’ 6” × 4’ 2”.
This is not the place to go deeply into the mathematics involved. I did not know, when the Society started, whether it would ever be-
It is obvious, however, thatwhen a number system based on ten and a come large in numbers, or even survive. Certainly I did not share the
measuring system based on twelve inches to the foot collide, “decimals” belief of a few members that it should be a crusading force, or that a
cannot be used, and usually it is necessary to reduce the whole problem change in number base was in the least probable in the foreseeable fu-
to inches, with long computations and eventual divisions by 1,728 to ob- ture. The record has been, if anything, somewhat better than my hopes.
tain cubic feet. We were able to show the clerks that by using duodeci- Membership has never been large. At a meeting in Chicago in 1968 the
mal multiplication with the inches now simply duodecimals of feet (i.e., secretary reported 166 members, from 30 different states, the District
2’6” is simply 2;6—two and six-twelfths feet)—and pointing off three of Columbia, and seven foreign countries. The Duodecimal Bulletin
places in the answer, the problem is amazingly simplified. has been published since 1945. It contains many unusual articles, often
I shall do the first step, but the interested reader is invited to refer to representing sound and fresh research. Number bases other than ten
the “Excursion” or New Numbers if his interest is deeper. are now regularly taught in schools, with some emphasis on the conve-
niences of twelve. At latest count the Society had reprinted “An Excur-
2;6 ft 1
[Note that 6 × 6 duodecimally is 30; (three dozen), 6 sion in Numbers” to a total of 60,000, chiefly to fill educational requests.
× 3;6 ft 1
× 2 is 10; (one dozen) with 3 to carry. Similarly, 3 x 6 The Duodecimal Society of Great Britain was formed in 1959,
13;0 
is 16 (one dozen six). Answer, pointing off two places: and I have visited in London its former secretary, Mr. Brian Bishop. I
+ 76;  
8¾ sq. ft. or 1260 sq. in.] have long since given up the presidency of The Duodecimal Society of
8;90 ft2
My Love Affair with Numbers · F. Emerson Andrews The Dozenal Society of America Page 3
America, and am urging younger men for its directorships. Because it
runs on voluntary services, most of Mr. Terry’s original endowment
is still intact. For me, this detour into numbers has been a fascinating
excursion, bringing unexpected sidelights, interests, and friendships.
More remains to be done. For the idea is absolutely valid. Counting by
dozens is better. •••
Notes
* This article first appeared in the Michigan Quarterly Review, Volume XI,
Number 2, Spring, 1972. Adapted from Mr. Andrews’ then-forthcoming bi-
ography, Foundation Watcher.
1 Resulting in “Revolving Numbers,” Atlantic Monthly, February, 1935,
and “The Dark Ages of Arithmetic,” July, 1935.
2 “An Adventure in Counting.” Mechanix Illustrated, September, 1943.
3 “Endowment”. The Duodecimal Bulletin, Vol. 1 №. 1, p. 4.
4 Godjevatz, Velizar, The New Musical Notation. Published by the Au-
thor, New York, 1948.
5 Godjevatz, Velizar. “The New Musical Notation”. The Duodecimal
Bulletin, Vol. 4 №. 2, pp. 1–5. The Duodecimal Society of Amer- The pocket multiplication table card which was inserted into a sleeve in the
ica, New York, 1948. back of the Essential Books edition of New Numbers.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
Produced in 11b7; (2011.) by the Dozenal Society of America. Contact
Editor(at)Dozenal(dot)org for more information. This document is based on
the former dsa document “E3a%20My%20love%20affair.pdf”, produced, an-
notated, and highlighted by Prof. Gene Zirkel, available at www.Dozenal.org
between 2005 and 2011. This document was produced 18 January 2011 by Mi-
chael Thomas De Vlieger. Images and a couple Duodecimal Bulletin annotations
were added.
This document may be freely shared under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License, Version 3.0 or greater. See http://creativecommons.org/li-
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Page 4 The Dozenal Society of America F. Emerson Andrews · My Love Affair with Numbers